


ghosts in the walls

by neptuneslight



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt Peter Parker, Protective Tony Stark, author wrote this at 3am in the throes of liability-by-lorde-induced misery, stream melodrama or perish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 08:00:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23847817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neptuneslight/pseuds/neptuneslight
Summary: Another little gasp comes from Peter, and Tony’s heart aches. He reaches forward, attempting to rest a hand on Pete’s shoulder, but he jerks away before Tony could make contact. He goes cold. Something is wrong.Something iswrong.
Relationships: May Parker (Spider-Man) & Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 42
Kudos: 276





	ghosts in the walls

Tony stumbles into the moonlit alley to find blood spattering the ground. 

“Kid?” he calls hesitantly, heart hammering in his chest. “Pete?”

His words only echo back to him.

“FRI, disengage and activate cloaking. Make this alley look totally normal, no Tony Stark or Spider-Man to be seen,” Tony orders, the words tumbling out and doing nothing to calm the speed his breaths were coming at. Peter pinged him. Peter, headstrong, I-can-do-this-myself, Parker fucking pinged him for help, and it lead him here, and now he’s not getting any fucking response.

FRIDAY’s immediate _Sure thing, Boss_ accompanies him as he steps out of the suit. His knees nearly buckle as soon as his shoes squelch in the blood pooling on the ground, and dread takes root in his stomach.

“Kid, I know you’re here somewhere, so how ‘bout you explain to me why it looks like a B-rate horror film here?”

A muffled little gasp comes from behind a dumpster a couple feet away, and that’s all it takes to send Tony into a sprint. He skids over the wet blood spreading like patchwork on the gravel, nearly wiping out as he tries to stop once he reaches the dumpster.

The first thing that catches his eye is the unconscious man plastered against the grungy brick wall with more webs than Tony would’ve ever thought necessary. The second is that he’s remarkably uninjured, despite the generous amount of blood streaking the alleyway. He follows the trail of blood with his eyes, his chest heaving with exertion and anxiety, till he comes up on the backside of the dumpster. And sees Peter. Maskless. Standing statue still.

“Kid?” he asks. No response, not even a twitch. Tony’s hands begin to shake, worry creeping into his bones. “Peter?”

Peter’s shoulder spasms. Tony takes that as a sign.

His hands come up like he was facing off with a wild animal, but his mind blanks. Tony’s eyes catch on the mop of brown hair and he does what he does best, and talks. “Uh, I see you took your mask off, bud. Wanna- wanna tell me who got you to do that, huh?”

Another little gasp comes from Peter, and Tony’s heart aches. He reaches forward, attempting to rest a hand on Pete’s shoulder, but he jerks away before Tony could make contact. He goes cold. Something is wrong.

“Did-” he tries, choking up. “Did that guy happen to see your face? By any chance?”

“He didn’t-” Peter lets out a harsh breath, all sharp lines and aggressive ends. “He didn’t see. I took it off after I knocked him out.”

The worry crashes over him in waves, and he just barely breathes out, “Why’d you take it off, Pete?”

He stays frozen. Not a single muscle in his body takes the time to relax, and Tony has half a mind to think he’d try to run. The waves start to push him under.

“I couldn’t breathe,” he says dully after the long, piercing silence. Tony’s blood starts turning to ice. Something is _wrong._

Peter finally turns to face him, but his eyes are trained on the ground. That doesn’t stop Tony from seeing the blood staining the right side of his face, still slipping down his skin from a long cut across his forehead that disappears into his hair. Or the shadow obscuring his left eye that looks more and more like a bruise blossoming into color. Or the split bottom lip, coagulating into beads down his chin.

Tony can’t stifle the gasp. The injuries aren’t surprising in the least, even normal. But as disturbing as that sentiment is, it pales in comparison to the expression on his kid’s face. Peter looks… he just looks empty. 

“Kid… what…” 

_What happened?_ he wants to say, but Peter looks up and meets his gaze, and his eyes are full of shattered glass. Nausea rises in his throat. God, what happened? What happened to Peter that could’ve- _broken_ him this way.

This is not right. Nothing about this is right.

Peter stumbled forward a step and Tony jerked forward, ready to catch him, only to be stopped by a shaking, faltering hand. Tony’s breath catches in his chest, and he desperately scans Peter from where he stands. He’s shaking so hard Tony could hear his teeth chattering from where he stood. And Peter-. Peter doesn’t even seem to notice.

“Peter, please, let me _touch_ you.” He’s having flashbacks to the snap, the fucking snap when Peter just dissolved in his hands and he couldn’t _do anything._ He can do something this time. He can fix it. Peter just has to let him in. 

Peter’s eyes are filling with tears, but his face remains a blank slate. Tony feels like he’s fucking coming apart at the seams. 

Wrong wrong _wrong-_

“Tony,” Peter whispers, raw and splintered. His face cracks, and shards of pure agony peek through. “Tony, please.”

And then Peter’s stumbling into him, twisting his hands into the fabric of his shirt and latching onto his side. His arm automatically circles around him, and sick relief floods through him. Some of the bone snapping tension Tony’s been carrying dissipates. 

Tony’s brain jumpstarts itself back to life, and he realizes he’s murmuring, chanting, “Come on, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go.”

He slowly wraps his second arm around Peter and grips him tight. Tony is terrified if his grip falters for even a second, he would shake to pieces right there in front of him.

He rests his chin on the top of Peter's head and takes his first full breath since he got the ping. 

There’s still something so wrong, something that shook Peter more than he’s ever seen. But now he has his hands on his kid, on Peter, and whatever it is, Tony can fix it. He can fix it. 

Tony guides Peter away from the dumpster and towards the mouth of the alley, talking all the while. 

“Come on, bud. Let’s get you back upstate. We’ll spend the rest of the week at the lake house, Morgan’s been dying to show you the tricks she taught Gerald. Who knew you could train an alpaca to do the things he does, but if anyone could get that stubborn bastard to bend to their will, it would be Mo,” he babbles, trying to fill the silence left by Peter. But his eyes stay trained on Peter, never wavering for a second. He fucking _hates_ the way he’s holding himself, the empty, _destroyed_ look in his eyes. “We can call May on the way there, explain things-”

Peter trips and falls, ripping out of Tony’s arms and crumpling to the bloodied ground. Fear wracks his body and Tony goes down right beside him, knees smarting at the rough landing. He reaches out and hooks a shaking finger under Peter’s chin, lifting his kid’s head so he can see his face. His bloody, numb, apathetic face.

Tony pulls Peter into his chest in a tight hug, other hand clasping the nape of his neck and tangling into his hair. “What’s wrong, buddy, what’s wrong,” he starts muttering, more to himself than Peter.

“We can’t.”

“Can’t what?” Tony asks and pulls back, baffled. “Go to the lake house? If you wanna go to the compound we can do that too-”

“We can’t call May.” Peter is so quiet it hurts.

Something ugly makes its home in his chest, but Tony ignores it. Tries to remedy the situation with a joke instead. “Bud, we can’t have her worrying over you, Lord knows that happens enough without my name attached.” 

“We _can’t,”_ Peter bites out, voice shaking, and glares at Tony with red eyes. “Because she’s _dead.”_

Tony freezes completely, muscles locking up and mind grinding to a halt. A cold knife slips between his ribs, gutting him from the inside out. 

“She's _what?”_ he gasps, pain and grief cleaving through him. 

Peter doesn’t repeat it. All the fight, all the anger, just drains out of him and he sinks in on himself, wrapping his arms around his midsection. 

A heavy, stifling silence spreads over the two, and Tony‘s chest tightens in a way he hasn’t felt in years. He’s suffocating. May. May. May. 

May Parker. 

He can’t-

May Parker is dead. 

He can’t fix this. 

Everything snaps into place. The way Peter's been holding himself, the way he’s been acting, his face. _His face._ Tony recognizes that blank mask now. Recognizes the shock, the emptiness, the apathy. Tony’s fucking stranded, stuck on an island of old memories and pain and grief beyond his own comprehension. 

Peter looks up at him with bloodshot eyes, arms still wrapped around himself, shoulders still curled inwards. Tony loses all of his air when he sees the cosmic, crushing sadness ingrained in his eyes. The agony shining from the cracks of shock has begun to split through completely, breaking Peter’s emotionless mask apart.

Breaking his whole world apart. 

“Why does this keep happening?” Peter asks, voice strangled, resigned. 

The question is a punch to the gut. He’s reeling so hard he can’t come up with an answer. He can only sit there as his heart. Tony’s heart. Just. Shatters. 

Peter’s desperately searching his face for an answer Tony doesn’t have. Blood drips from his reopened lip, a steady rhythm on the ground, and Tony's eyes burn from unshed tears. Too much this is too much. 

“Tell me-” he croaks, the perfect fucking picture of devastation. 

“Tell me why the world never fights fair.”

It renders him totally, utterly speechless. 

“I don’t-” Tony’s voice breaks, and the tears race down his cheeks. “I don’t know.”

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> thiiinking about expanding this into a whole universe. many think much thoughts
> 
> leave a kudos or a comment 🥺 maybe 🥺 if you wanna 🥺
> 
> have the best day ever and obey quarantine rules!


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